Cecilie Strange - Beyond

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 45:06
Size: 103,7 MB
Art: Front

(7:03) 1. The Alice's Of My Life
(9:46) 2. Byssan Lull
(6:43) 3. Where My Heart Lives
(7:22) 4. Midnight Sun Upon Saltværsøya
(7:32) 5. New Life
(6:38) 6. The Great Grand

Cecilie Strange is releasing her fourth album, BEYOND, on April Records. Like previous work it’s calming and filled with lovely melodies. BEYOND is much more personal. Cecilie wanted to make an album about the “circle of life.” She wrote songs about people she loves, and, people she’s loved and lost.

The Alices Of My Life ’is dedicated to her Grandmother who died when Cecilia was eight and to Cecilia’s daughter, Alice. Cecilie and her band speak with the same voice. The piano likes to start a phrase and the saxophone finishes it elegantly. This music sounds simple. It’s like a folk melody.

The bass and drums weave in and out. No one’s showing off. This is how most of the album plays out. There’s a fragile strength to BEYOND.

On ‘Midnight Sun Upon Saltvaersoya ’saxophone and piano slow dance together. Cecilie adds achingly beautiful sax lines while Peter Rosendal’s left hand tentatively adds piano chords. His right picks single notes from the melancholy playbook. Thommy Andersson’s warm sounding bass is just perfect.

Cecilie doesn’t sound like any other sax player. She definitely has developed her own voice. Even though she plays tenor sometimes her tone reminds me of alto player Lee Konitz. She blows so quietly it can sound like the smaller instrument.

Cecilie sings ‘Byssan Lull ’to her children. It’s a Swedish folk song and it’s sung beautifully by Josefine Cronholm. I like Jakob Hoyer’s drumming. He’s quiet but you know he’s there. He always comes in at just the right moment. At almost ten minutes this is the longest tune on the album.

Cronholm sings wordlessly on ‘New Life.’ Even though she’s a great singer I think adding this song may have been a miscalculation. This is Cecilie’s record. For me, there’s too much singing. I’m not comfortable criticizing this album because I know a lot of people are going to get it and love it. Ceclie Strange wanted to make an album for people she’s known and loved. I think she’s succeeded beautifully.By Tim Larsen https://jazzviews.net/cecilie-strange-beyond/

Personnel: Cecilie Strange – Saxophone; Peter Rosendal – Piano; Thommy Andersson – Bass; Jakob Hoyer – Drums; Josefine Cronholm – Vocals (Tracks 1 and 5)

Beyond

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Josefine Cronholm, Kirk Knuffke, Thommy Andersson - Near the Pond

Styles: Contemporary Jazz
Year: 2021
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 37:34
Size: 90,0 MB
Art: Front

(4:50) 1. Clara Mathilda's Dream
(4:17) 2. I Don't Know
(3:57) 3. White Shoulders
(3:27) 4. Dozen a Day
(3:05) 5. Subway
(3:48) 6. One Wish
(4:45) 7. I Sang
(1:30) 8. Wrong with You
(3:50) 9. One for All
(4:01) 10. Near the Pond

The most notable qualities of this set are the balances finely struck between tentativeness and assertiveness, between reflection and improvisatory fire, both of which effectively serve to place it in a category of its own, one that’s informed by both art song and some of the more rarefied elements of contemporary jazz.

All these points are brought home in the opening Clara Mathilda’s Dream, a piece which has the air of a Tove Jansson short story about it. The lyricism is restrained, yet the lack of contrivance ensures no casual definition will suffice. Comparatively speaking, the following I Don’t Know is marked by an earthiness that’s at odds with what sounds like an uncredited mbira; Knuffke’s cornet solo pays a kind of homage to the setting.

Initially Dozen A Day hints less than coyly at ECM-type atmospherics, but it soon becomes clear that there’s business afoot quite at odds with that idea. Knuffke’s work is that of a musician conscious of the passing moments and leaving a telling stain on them.

Cronholm’s One Wish mines a seam of minimalism but pulls off the not inconsiderable trick of making it compelling. Wollesen’s vibraphone is the principal instrument of colouration, while a brief burst of Cronholm scatting makes for contrast before the reiteration of the two-word title.

The title track, with Cronholm and Knuffke harmonising vocally at first, has the quality of lamentation about it but avoids becoming mired in melancholy principally through the latter’s restrained cornet declamations and a brooding percussion and strings bed. Here, as elsewhere, the restraint is intriguing as opposed to distancing, which makes the prospect of returning to this set in the future an enticing one. By Nic Jones https://jazzjournal.co.uk/2021/09/07/josefine-cronholm-kirk-knuffke-thommy-andersson-near-the-pond/

Personnel: Vocals, Percussion – Josefine Cronholm; Vocals – Kirk Knuffke; Bass, Arranged By [String] – Thommy Andersson; Cello – Melissa Coleman; Cornet, Drums, Vibraphone, Percussion – Kenny Wollesen; Viola – Lena Fankhauser, Marta Potulska

Near the Pond

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Josefine Cronholm - Ember

Size: 116,3 MB
Time: 50:09
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2018
Styles: Jazz/Folk Vocals
Art: Front

01. Sing (5:54)
02. From My Window (4:23)
03. Rain (5:35)
04. Horses (5:08)
05. Blackbird (5:09)
06. The Surrender (4:14)
07. On Your Wing (5:50)
08. The Wind Blows (9:30)
09. Love Song (4:19)

“The album’s title EMBER tells us about its content: the glow of life. It’s a tribute to life with all that it contains. Man, in his search for meaning and way through pain and chaos, zest for life and happiness. It has been 7 years since my last release. On the new album, the songs and texts are at the center of an acoustic universe, where the melody and the text work together with simplicity and warmth. In our attempt to capture the glow, we continue to burn ourselves, but it should not make us abandon the belief in what makes us living people.“ - Josefine Cronholm

Growing up with the nature close and as an audience she knew in a very early age that she wanted to sing and dance so by the age of 16 she moved to the city and started highscool where she studied theater, music and dance. Here she experienced the magic of the stage.

Her childhood and youth gave her a strong foundation in swedish folk and jazz.

During her time at the Rythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen she started to work with the British piano player Django Bates and recorded the acclaimed "Quiet Nights" (1998).

At the same period she founded her group IBIS and recorded two albums: "Wild Garden" in 2001 and "Hotel Paradise" in 2003. That year she also received the prize Swedish Jazz artist of the year 2003.

Her third soloalbum "Songs of the Falling Feather" was released 2010. In this production Josefine Cronholm wanted to leave the found and improvised and focus on the design and production. To obtain this she drew in the magnificent musician Henrik Lindstrand for support on the production.

ACT Music released this critically acclaimed record. She received The (Danish) Art Council Award for the album due to it extraordinary artistic qualities.

She began her work with Marilyn Mazur in 2001 as a member in Percussion Paradise and later in Cronholm/Mazur/Jonsson Trio and the quartet Celestial Circle with

John Taylor and Anders Jormin. Cd was released at ECM 2011. She is also a member in Mazurs eleven women orchestra "Shamania".

In 2013 a new Trio ARC is made with Paolo Russo and Thommy Andersson and the album is called "Archipelago".

Josefine Cronholm has also worked with artists like; New Jungle Orchestra, Kirk Knuffke, Kenny Werner, Ida Bach Jensen, Richard Galliano, Lelo Nika, Steen Rasmussen, Lotte Anker,

Frans Bak, Jacob Karlzon, Jacob Fisher, and many others.

Josefine Cronholm was born in the south of Sweden in 1971.

Since 1995 she is based in Copenhagen where she lives with her family.

Ember

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Josefine Cronholm & Ibis - Hotel Paradise

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 44:47
Size: 102.5 MB
Styles: Contemporary jazz
Year: 2003/2012
Art: Front

[4:10] 1. I Hold My Breath
[5:51] 2. Do You Remember
[5:34] 3. Shadow
[4:36] 4. Aeroplane
[4:16] 5. True Colors
[5:58] 6. Wings
[4:28] 7. Silent Moon
[3:55] 8. Memory Of A Lover
[5:55] 9. Another Day In Paradise

Some singers become famous overnight with a hit song. Others have to fight a long and hard battle for recognition - that may never come. And then there are singers who, without being pushy, work on music that interests them or which they are invited to join, and they are instantly noticed, they are talked about on the grapevine, one musician tells another, and audiences spread the word about the indisputable talent. Long before their record debuts, such singers as Cæcilie Norby and Randi Laubek were known among musicians, and the same goes for singer Josefine Cronholm.

Josefine was born on 13 May 1971 in Domsten, Sweden, and in 1995 she was admitted to the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen. And soon this versatile super talent was in great demand. She has since been heard with Fredrik Lundin, Frans Bak, Django Bates, the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra, Marilyn Mazur, New Jungle Orchestra, and numerous others. Josefine Cronholm’s voice has a large range, she has brilliant technique and a wonderful audacity in terms of music. She has a rare gift for capturing an audience the very moment she enters the scene, and with her intense, unaffected stage presence she is the quintessence of a “natural” woman.

But for long Josefine Cronholm was a secret - to her fellow-countrymen in Sweden. Actually she was not hiding, she had just chosen to live in Denmark, where she is probably the most sought-after singer at the moment. Through her remarkable recordings with Frans Bak (“Natsange”), with String Swing (“Red Shoes” - the one with the marvellous cover by Arnoldi), and her first recording with her own band, Ibis (“Wild Garden”), her cd sales have been steadily increasing, and she has had lots of outstanding reviews in Denmark and in such countries as Germany and France, where e.g. the leading French jazz magazine Jazzman gave both “Red Shoes” and “Wild Garden” its highest praise, the term “Choc”.

In Denmark String Swing won a Danish Grammy Award, and Josefine herself has been awarded the prestigious Palæ Bar Prize, and now they have also spotted her in Sweden. And to such a degree that she has been given one of the highest distinctions available to a Swedish jazz artist: She was chosen as “Jazz in Sweden Artist” 2003, which inter alia led to a long tour in Sweden and to this cd recording.

Josefine Cronholm and Ibis say thank you with this beautiful and evocative cd, “Hotel Paradise”. Not a jazz recording as such - rather a record with a lot of jazz feeling in Josefine’s poetic and astonishing musical universe. When asked about her music, Josefine says that she “creates simple music; songs that are not built on a lot of complicated chords, but which grow from a core of equal parts of air and tones”. That’s how Josefine Cronholm and Ibis conjure up seductive moods and lovely melodies on “Hotel Paradise” and create room for reflection and a broad spectrum of feelings, contemplation, warmth and humour. A beautiful record.

Hotel Paradise mc
Hotel Paradise zippy

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